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Just Kidding: Stand-Up, Speech Acts and Slurs

2021; University of Lisbon; Volume: 13; Issue: 60 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2478/disp-2021-0001

2182-2875

Peter Alward,

Emotions and Moral Behavior

Abstract People respond to moral criticism of their speech by claiming that they were joking. In this paper, I develop a speech act analysis of the humor excuse consisting of a negative stage, in which the speaker denies he or she was making an assertion, and a positive stage, in which the speaker claims she or he was engaged in non-serious/humorous speech instead. This analysis, however, runs afoul of the group identity objection, according to which there is a moral distinction between jokes targeting members of vulnerable groups made by members of those groups and similar jokes made by non-members. In order to avoid this objection, I offer a revision to the speech act analysis that draws upon Perry’s distinction between beliefs and belief-states.